


Amber Alert

by b99xperaltiago



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, F/M, Kidnapping, Season/Series 07 Spoilers, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24113485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b99xperaltiago/pseuds/b99xperaltiago
Summary: When three young kids disappear into thin air, the nine-nine is put under the spotlight as they try to figure out who the ghost is that is responsible for the kidnappings before it's too late, before another child is taken in plain sight.But how far will a parent go to protect their child and ensure they are safe?(Also posted on Wattpad under the same name)
Relationships: Charles Boyle & Jake Peralta, Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago, Ray Holt & Jake Peralta, but its not the focus - Relationship
Comments: 7
Kudos: 66





	1. monday

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in the year 2027, and while in the show Amy is more than likely going to be at least a lieutenant by then, if not a captain, she is a sergeant still working at the nine-nine for purposes of the story. 
> 
> This work was also inspired by both the 1x01 ending and the entirety of 1x02 of Chicago P.D. I watched those episodes back in December and this idea popped into my head and I wasn't able to shake it (and yes, it did take me five months to write a three-chapter story, you should know by now I am a very slow writer). 
> 
> This is complete and will be updated regularly!

"Hey," Amy begins as she enters the briefing room, and she is audibly out of breath. Following her husband through into the room, she places her bag on the front table before turning to face the remainder of the squad standing in the room too, "What's this emergency briefing about?" She asks.

The room all shrug their shoulders as then, as if on cue, Holt and Terry enter the briefing room, Holt standing by the door and Terry standing at the podium at the front of the room.

Jeffords waits patiently as the detectives and Amy find their seats at the tables before explaining as the squad looks up to him.

"As some of you might know, the state is currently under amber alert as three minors have been reported abducted over the weekend." Terry explains slowly.

"Three?" Amy repeats, leaning forward in her seat.

Terry just nods in response, looking down to the folder he took in the room with him a few moments before.

Rosa takes her foot from the table. "Is there any information on the bastard that done this?"

Jeffords looks sadly into the squad before shaking his head. "No, no suspect information has been able to be obtained. The person doing this is a ghost. We've got two of the families coming in later to talk to us, the other one will be arriving tomorrow."

"Who are the kids?" Jake wonders.

Terry walks forward before dropping off files, one on each table. "The information is inside."

_Child number one: Caelyn Duncan, seven-years-old, from Brooklyn New York. Very tall, olive skin, auburn hair, brown eyes._

_Child number two: Alfie-Jay Burrow, six-years-old, from Queens New York. A little short, light skin, blonde hair, green eyes._

_Child number three: Brittany Holder, six-years-old, from Brooklyn New York. Average height, bronze skin, brown hair, brown eyes._

Charles audibly sighs. "They're so young, they're probably terrified out of their minds."

Holt speaks up, walking forward from out of the shadow cast by the open briefing room door. "This is priority number one now, squad, understand?" He asks, gaining nods from every one in the room, "Dismissed." He says and everyone dissipates out of the briefing room and out toward their desks.

Jake stops Amy before she can leave the room. "You okay?"

Amy nods slowly before shaking her head. "They're Mac's age."

The detective glances to the floor briefly before looking back to his wife. "I know, it's scary when I think about that."

Amy folds her arms over her chest. "Their parents must be worried out of their minds, god knows I would be."

Jake leans forward and wraps his arms around his wife to comfort her, pressing a chaste kiss to the top of her forehead. "We'll catch the sick bastard doing this."

* * *

Terry comes into the bullpen, looking over to Rosa's desk. "Diaz, Santiago, Caelyn's mom is in interrogation room C, I want you two to talk to her."

The two of them nod and stand up almost simultaneously before going through to interrogation room C. Rosa opens the door and smiles briefly to the woman sat on the side of the table where they mostly saw arrested suspects.

"Good morning, miss Duncan, I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter." Amy says with a sympathetic smile as she takes a seat on the opposite side of the table.

The woman smiles despite the sad look imprinted on her face. "Please, call me Isabella."

Diaz and Santiago both nod again before Rosa leans against the table. "We just need to ask you a few questions, is that okay?"

Isabella nods. "Yes of course, anything you need." She replies.

"Is Caelyn an only child?" Amy wonders.

The woman shakes her head. "No, I've got an older boy, his name's Ethan, he's fourteen."

Rosa speaks up next. "Are any of Ethan's friends someone you would consider dangerous at all?"

Once again, Isabella shakes her head quickly. "We've only just moved to Brooklyn from Puerto Rico and Ethan isn't the best in social situations, he hasn't got any friends."

"What about Caelyn's father? Is he in the picture at all?" Amy asks.

At this point I seemed as though the only thing Isabella knew how to do was shake her head. "No, he walked out on us when Caelyn was three, haven't seen him since."

"What was Caelyn like? What sort of child is she?" Rosa questions, looking briefly to the notes she had made in front of her before looking back to Isabella.

Isabella smiles widely. "The best you could ask for. She's so optimistic and happy. She can be bossy at times though, but we've been working on her manners for school."

"Has Caelyn talked about someone suspicious following her in the past week? Like following her home from the bus stop or into school?"

Again, Isabella shakes her head. "No, she hasn't said anything like that."

Rosa then stands from the table. "Thank you for your time miss Duncan, this is very helpful." She says before dragging Amy out of the room.

Once the door had shut, Amy furrows her eyebrows to Rosa. "That wasn't helpful, we've got nothing on who this could be."

"I was being polite, her kid was just abducted Amy." Rosa says before Jake and Charles come around the corner.

"Hey, you got anything on Caelyn?" Charles questions.

Amy shakes her head. "No, normal kid, mom hasn't heard her say anything about a suspicious person and family is ruled out. Older brother has social anxiety and hasn't got any friends and the father's been out of the picture for years. What about Brittany?"

Jake shakes his head too. "Only a rough relationship with her oldest sister Summer but she's only eleven and the parents got divorced when she was four, dad got full custody of all five kids."

"What about the mother, could she be involved in this?" Rosa questions, furrowing her brows together.

The younger male detective nods his head, pointing his finger in the direction of his friend. "That was what I was thinking, she's got the motive - not seeing her kid in two years maybe she's trying to get back at her ex-husband."

Amy crosses her arms over her chest. "But how does that link to the other kids?" She wonders.  
Jake shrugs. "I guess we'll just have to ask him and find out."

All four of the officers go toward the room with Brittany's father inside, Rosa and Jake going through the door to talk with him while Amy and Charles went into the room beside it to watch through the glass.

Rosa immediately sits in the chair opposite the man while Jake stood leaning his back against the wall behind his friend.

"I've already told you everything I know, I have nothing else left to say to you." The father says, sighing as he sat back in the plastic chair.

Jake crossed his arms over his chest and took a step closer toward the interrogation table. "What about your ex-wife?"

The man's face dropped at the mention as he sits forward again, leaning his elbows against the table. "Malikah was never a hundred-percent happy with the fact I got custody of the kids."

"So do you think that she could have something to do with your daughter's disappearance?" Rosa questions, furrowing her eyebrows.

He nods. "With Brittany's yes, I'm sure she's probably the one who did it," he replies confidently, "But I'm not really sure about the other kids that have gone missing."

Jake stands up straight and begins to walk toward the door again to exit the interrogation room. "Well that's a start."

He comes back a few moments later with a notepad in hand. He throws the book down on the metal table, along with a pen. "Write down any information you may have on her that's as accurate as possible. Address, phone number, anything that might lead us to her."

The father obliged and quickly starting writing down what he could think of. A few minutes later they had her full name, her last known vehicle and address of herself as well as an address to one of her friend's places too.

The two detectives thanked him and left the room again, Jake grabbing the notepad as he walked past the table before going behind the glass to stand with Amy and Charles.

"Okay, run the address through the system, see if Malikah is still living there and if she is, let's go over there to talk."

* * *

The address had come up accurate, Malikah still lived in the building and when Rosa and Charles had arrived they found the car that was listed, license plate the same too, still parked out front.

The two detectives stepped up to the front door, Rosa unable to contain the slam of her fist against the wooden block in front of them. She called out loudly and they both waited. A brief moment went by and no one answered the door, so the female detective banged again, shouting louder as she took a step back ready to kick the door in.

Before she could swing her foot however, the door opened wide very quickly. The woman standing behind the door gave the two cops a filthy look.

"What do you want?" She asked sourly, the words spitting out of her mouth.

As they were digging around the system not that longer than thirty minutes ago, they had found that Malikah had a criminalistic past. She had been fined for public intoxication, arrested shoplifting and being in possession of marijuana, and eventually served time for assault which was around about the time that the divorce had been filed.

_"No wonder the dad got full custody of the kids." Rosa had remarked with a sneer clear as day on her face._

Charles spoke up, answering the woman's questions knowing full well that Rosa would snap is she replied. "We have a few questions regarding the disappearance of your daughter."

She took a single step back, hardening her grip against the side of the door. "You can ask me questions when you have a warrant."

Rosa puts her hand out to stop the door from closing. She glares to the woman behind it, pushing it back open completely again. "We don't need a warrant to ask you questions, why don't you show me some sympathy and answer them to help us find your daughter, otherwise I'm gonna start to get suspicious that you're hiding something from us."

Malikah sighs loudly, glaring at the two cops standing in front of her before she folds her arms over her chest. "What sort of questions?" She questions.

Charles takes out the notepad, flicking the cover over the back and begins reading off the page. "When was the last time you saw your kids, specifically Brittany?" He wonders.

The woman's eyes widen and she takes a step forward, coming closer toward the detectives. "What kind of stupid question is that?" She asks, her voice increasing a great deal. Rosa gives her a threatening look, making the woman lower her voice again. "Two years ago, I haven't seen any of them since the divorce."

"Thank you," Charles says, looking back down to the notebook in his hand, "Is there any way you might feel revengeful to your ex-husband for how the divorce and how full custody went to him?"

Malikah's eyebrows furrow as she uncrosses her arms, putting them back against her side. "You think I did this? If anything it was my son of a bitch ex-husband who did this, trying to get my name in the ground and get me in trouble with the pigs again," she replied bitterly, "I'm done here, you come near me again I'm reporting you both and anyone else you send here to your superiors and I'll have your badges taken away for harassment." She says quickly before entering the house again and slamming the door shut behind her.

Charles and Rosa stand on the doorstep for a minute, staring into the space where the woman was previously stood and now the wooden block of the door is now.

They then both walk down the few steps and go back across the street in silence until they reach the car, when Rosa looks over the hood to her shorter colleague.  
"I thought we said we weren't gonna ask that question until we got a better clue." She wonders, her voice as monotone as normal.

Charles gives her an innocent look. "Sorry, I forgot. It was the second one on the list, if Amy didn't want me to ask it second why did she write it second?"

She unlocks the door but speaks one more time before climbing inside. "I think she's hiding something."

The shorter detective nods as he joins her in the car on the passenger side. "I've got that feeling too."

* * *

Jake turns around in his chair as he hears the elevator ping open, displaying Charles and Rosa entering the bullpen.

"Did you get anything from Malikah?" The male detective questions, furrowing his eyebrows and leaning back in his chair.

As the walked past his desk, Charles spoke up first. "She seemed like she's hiding something but we didn't get anything too big before she slammed the door."

Rosa shakes her head as she walks past the desk. "She threatened to report us and anyone else if we went near her again."

Jake sighs under his breath, turning his attention back to his computer monitor. "Damn it." He mumbles, throwing his head back.

Holt then exits his office as if on cue, looking out to the bullpen with the same straight face as normal. "Is there any new developments on the case?"

The three detectives shake their heads, Jake speaking up a quiet response to clarify to the superior. "Caelyn's mother has no motive, her father is out of the picture and we have a word from Isabella that he is living out of the country, Brittany's father has an alibi and her mother is refusing to talk."

Holt nods before going back into his office without saying another word, shutting the door tightly behind him.

Terry then grabs everyone's attention from his desk behind them all, shouting quietly throughout the bullpen. "Alright, let's not get discouraged by any of this, it's still a big case and the press is all over it. Keep working." He says, making the detective's turn back into their desks to carry on with what they were doing.

* * *

Amy rushes up to the fourth floor bullpen from the lobby as quick as she could with the man racing behind her. He had come in to the building in a hurry, claiming to know something that might have been in use. She hadn't checked first whether the information could be legitimate - any time wasted is more time for the kidnapper to strike again or do something worse to the already abducted kids.

She burst through the gate, gaining everyone's attention before she called out for Charles, Rosa and Jake to come over in gasps as she thinks maybe the elevator might not have been a bad choice other than the stairs.

She points behind her when the three detectives have gathered around. "This is Seth, he knows something about Malikah and Brittany's father." Amy says, clearly out of breath.

Rosa's ears perk up. "What can you tell us?" She wonders.

Seth, who was a little out of breath too from running up four flights of stairs behind the sergeant, shrugged slightly. "It's not a lot but I know she's recently been stalking around him. She told me about the fact that Carlos has announced he's starting dating again since the divorce and then she went sneaking around their profiles. According to her some of the girls he's been dating are a little sketchy."

"How exactly do you know Malikah?" Jake questions, folding his arms over one another.

The civilian places his hands in his pocket. "She's a friend of mine, has been for years."

Charles speaks up, furrowing his brows deeply. "And you're sure this can be useful information to go with?"

Seth nods quickly. "I wouldn't lie to the cops, I swear. Malikah and I are close, and I love Brittany as if she was a niece of mine, I want her back safe."

The three detectives nod, smile each a little (some more than others) before thanking him and going back over to Jake's desk alongside with Amy.

Rosa's the one that speaks up first. "Are we really gonna trust the guy who just came off the street? He could be a complete stranger to all of this, and it's not like we can go back over to Malikah's to confirm she knows the guy."

There's a beat of silence before Jake shrugs. "We're just gonna have to right now. That's a new lead, we can go in there and talk to Carlos to confirm if he has recently been dating, get the names of the women he's been with."

* * *

The apartment had been relatively since they had gotten home from the precinct. Everyone had stayed late at work, Jake and Amy leaving and making it back home just after eight. They relieved the babysitter, thanking her for staying late with Mac.

Once the babysitter had left, Mac went through to his room to change into his pyjamas before brushing his teeth and going to bed, leaving Jake and Amy alone in the living room.

As Jake joined her on the couch, she kept her attention on the tv as they covered over the disappearance of the three kids - that was all the news was covering over today, that and the weather. It's was only when she spoke that she ripped her gaze away from the screen a couple feet in front of them.

"It's getting late, do you want to get something in tonight instead?" He questions.

She hesitates for a moment before shaking her head slowly, looking around slightly before locking saddened eyes with her husband beside her. "I'm not really hungry, I ate a bit at the precinct anyway."

His eyebrows furrow whilst he changed his position on the couch, leaning against the back to hoister himself up a little, sitting more sideways on the sofa. "Are you sure? I can cook something if you'd prefer?"

She nods subtly. "I'm really okay, I'm not that hungry."

The apartment goes silent again, the only sound is the quiet mumbling of the reporter on the tv, covering the little known public facts on the case.

During the interview with the press earlier on that day, no one said anything too important, knowing that could interfere with or hinder what they were doing so far, especially if one of the people they wanted to speak to would learn the cops were after them - that could easily make it simple enough for them to change their story and possibly get away with it.

They had managed to get through to Carlos too, and found out a couple of names of the people who had been to his house during or after a date in the past six months, which was when he claimed to have started dating again. After running the names through the system and contacted them all it turns out that two of them had alibis, one of them was out of state visiting family and one of them had died three months ago, so all the names got cleared.

Jake sits back on the couch normally, about to say something before Amy cuts him off quietly, already standing from the couch.

"Actually, I'm getting tired and we need to be up early tomorrow to get back to work. I'm gonna go to bed." She announces, handing the tv remote over to Jake before walking into the bedroom.

He watched her walk off, looking to the closed door for a moment before turning his attention back on to the news. He mindlessly let's his eyes fall on the pictures of the kids being displayed once again on the screen for a very brief moment before he turns off the screen quickly, jumping up himself and traipsing into the kitchen and grabbing something small to eat from the fridge. Eating the contents whilst pacing around the tiled floor, he then enters the bedroom slowly to find Amy already in bed.

She was going through something on her phone, her bedside table lighting up her side of the room brightly. She's silent as he changes out of the clothes that he had worn that day, quiet as he pulls a new shirt over his head and mute as he put on a pair of his checkered pants and threw his work clothes in the laundry basket in the corner of the room.

He joined her under the sheet and pulled his phone from the bedside table, where he had put it on charge when they had arrived home. It was on 56% so he decided to leave it on charge, noting to himself to be careful not to pull the wire.

They stayed in silence, both of them sat on their phones. By the looks of it over her shoulder, Amy was replying back to the emails from the evening that she hadn't checked already and Jake was looking back through old photos on his phone.

They're quiet for minutes before Jake places the phone back down on the bedside table, turning to his side again to face Amy. He hesitates for a moment as he waits for her to meet his gaze, but when she doesn't he speaks up, gaining her attention slowly.

"I know it was a rough day today," he says quietly, "Whenever we get a case like this it's always a rough one."

She nods, not replying back until she placed her phone down on her bedside table too. She turns to face him and she has the same saddened look on her face as before. The sergeant sighs. "I know, it's just a little tougher doing cases like these when we've got our own kid, and Mac is the same age as the kids that were taken. It just - seeing the parents like that, distressed and worried, heartbroken about their child being taken away from them - it just goes to the mom side of me, and it breaks my heart. I just can't imagine what those parents are feeling like, and the fact that they're depending on us to find their kids unharmed, it just makes the pressure worse."

Jake nods, reciprocating the sorrow look in his eyes back to her as she voices her concerns. He brings his hand out and intertwined his fingers in hers. "It gets to me too." He replies slowly.

Amy opens her mouth to speak but is cut off by a tiny voice standing in the doorway.

Mac was standing in the frame into their bedroom, holding one of his stuffed animals as he stared to his parents.

Jake furrows his eyebrows slightly, feeling his heart break inside his head as he sees similar sad look on his son's face. "What's wrong, buddy?" He asks, sitting forward in bed a little.

The young boy grips hold of the stuffed giraffe that he was gifted by Charles when he was born. "I had a nightmare."

"Oh, baby, I'm sorry," Amy sighs, removing her hand from her husband's and putting her arms out, taking the seven-year-old in for a tight hug, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Mac shakes his head against his mother's shoulder, whispering his response. "No, I don't."

Amy presses a gentle kiss against the beginning of the curls growing on the top of his head - a feature he inherited from his father, something she was hoping he would get from long before he was born. "That's okay, Mac, you don't have to if you don't want to."

The boy tightens his arms around his mother for a moment before insisting on pulling away. He looked up to her with the puppy dog eyes he had also inherited from his father. "Can I stay with you and dad tonight in your bed?" He asks.

Jake and Amy look to each other briefly for a moment before Amy nods, inviting Mac up on to the mattress into the middle.

There's a pause where Jake furrows his brows and widens his eyes slightly. "I thought we said this was influencing him in all the wrong ways." He whispers.

Amy shrugs. "It's only one night, and I think we'd both want to be closer to him given what has happened today."

He couldn't lie, the thought of being able to sleep right beside his son, knowing he was safe during the night, did make him feel relaxed. While it was a little crammed now that Mac was no longer the newborn he once was, but they had plenty of experience with a child sleeping in their bed that wasn't a tiny baby two years ago when a five-year-old was sleeping in their bed every night or so because he went through a phase of having nightmares all the time.

Jake smiles and hugs his son as he placed himself comfortably between both of his parents on the bed. "Okay, it's not like I will get a say in it anymore anyway, he's already made up his mind."

Mac grins back a wide goofy smile to both Jake and Amy as they both began peppering him with kisses and tickles, his laughter eventually belting out into the room making both his parents begin laughing too.

When it had calmed down, Mac looks back up to his parents as he lays down between them. He gives them both a look of adoration, his eyes dropping back down again. "I love you mom and dad." He says quietly, his voice drifting off too.

Amy and Jake look up to each other as they both had propped themselves up by their forearms against the mattress, smiling to each other before looking back down to Mac as he shifted slightly in his place, bringing the stuffed giraffe closer to his chest.

Jake leans forward, placing a gentle kiss against his forehead, whispering back the same announcement as Amy did the same.

"Goodnight, Mac, we'll be right here in the morning." Jake says, staying up on his arms for a moment as Mac falls asleep completely.

Before Amy switched off the bedside lamp, she furrows her eyebrows toward her husband, speaking in a tiny whisper as not to wake the boy sleeping beside them both. "We're gonna find the guy who's been doing this, aren't we?" She wonders.

Jake nods with confidence, it clear on his face. "Of course we are, I'm not gonna give up trying to find those kids, and I know I'm not the only one on the squad who will do the same. All three of them are gonna come home safe, I swear."

She leans forward, being careful not to dip the mattress down too much to risk waking Mac up. She gently presses her lips against his for a brief moment, pulling away as quickly as they were together. "Okay," she says when they've pulled apart, "If you're sure, then I'm sure."


	2. tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited this very quickly, so I'm sorry if there are any mistakes!

Alfie-Jay's mother stormed into the bullpen just after 1:30, demanding to be spoken to regarding her missing son. Charles and Amy look up from their work at his desk before nod, leading the blonde-haired, obviously very furious, woman back through to one of the interrogation rooms as they did with Isabella and Carlos the day before. 

The moment they opened the door, the woman stormed in and slammed her fist down against the metal table, turning her heels to face the detective and sergeant. "When you catch the guy that did this I can take him off your hands, you won't have a thing to worry about." She says, her face explaining that she was completely serious.

Amy and Charles look to each other with a look of shock and startled at what the person in front of them had just said, but they quickly change the subject. Amy gestures toward the seat, speaking up herself too as she sat down opposite the mother. "Mrs Burrow-"

She sneers, cutting the sergeant off. "Miss Burrow. Alfie-Jay's father and I were never married." 

Amy holds her hand up as an apology. "Miss Burrow, I'm so very sorry to know what happened to your son and I promise you we are working as hard as we can to try and find the person who did this, this case is our number one priority right now."

Miss Burrow smiles slightly, nodding her head. "Thank you." 

Charles pipes in from the corner of the room. "Do you mind if we ask you some questions? They will just help us understand a little better and might give us a clue as to who we are looking for." 

She nods again, leaning her back against the metal chair. "Ask away." 

The detective joins the two women at the table, pulling out the same notepad he had been using since the beginning of the case yesterday. It didn't have a lot of notes in, just information from Carlos about his new girlfriends, Malikah's answers to the minimal amount of questions yesterday, as well as some information about Brittany and her older sister's rough relationship. 

"What can you tell me about Alfie-Jay?" Charles starts with.

Miss Burrow looks out into the room and smiles to herself before being brought back to reality with her response. "He was always a cheeky kind of kid. He didn't misbehave, but he was silly, he had a loveable personality. Everyone loved Alfie-Jay." 

Amy then speaks up for the second question, beating Charles to the point. "Is there anyone that Alfie-Jay told you about being a little overly friendly? Maybe another parent at school or someone who lived near you?" 

She shook her head. "No, if there was I would have reported it straight away." 

The officers remained seated and asked Miss Burrow the questions they had written down, scribbling her answers on another piece of paper. When they were done, they thanked her before standing up and leaving the room, both of them sighing under their breath as they walked back to the bullpen.

"Did you get anything from her?" Rosa questioned when they go back around the corner to the desks.

Charles throws the notepad down and shakes his head, Amy slumping down into the chair beside her husband's empty desk. 

"No," Amy replied quietly, "No one suspicious around Alfie-Jay, everyone loved him, no one they knew would want to hurt him, she wouldn't let anyone who seemed risky near her son, etcetera, etcetera."

The bullpen goes silent for a moment. The holding cell seems to read the room, as all the people inside of it keep their voices to a minimum while the detectives all stare around the room slowly. The officers placed like figurines, dotted around the room in various places, all go mute before Jake's voice breaks the silence like the shattering of a mirror.

He walks quickly into the bullpen from the corridor off the interrogation rooms. "I think I've got something." He says loudly, making everyone turn their heads.

Rosa and Charles rush over to Jake's desk, watching over his shoulder as he fiddled around with the computer for a brief moment, explaining what he was doing as he did it.  
"Carlos just said why he was being so defensive yesterday when we asked who he left the kids with," the detective says before spinning in a right angle to face his colleagues, "Because he didn't leave the kids with anyone and he didn't want to get into trouble for it, then where would the kids go?" 

"Foster care?" Charles replies.

Jake lifts his finger up and turns back around to face the monitor. "That was a rhetorical question, Charles, it didn't need an answer but I appreciate it nonetheless." 

Amy leans against the desk, furrowing her eyebrows to her husband beside her. "Jake, where are you going with this and can you get to the point?" 

He nods, typing something into the computer and getting a search result back. His attention then goes back to his friends again. "Although he said that last week he and his date were going a little further out of Brooklyn than normal, so he hired a babysitter because he knew he was going to be gone too long for the kids to be left alone." 

There's a tension pause as Jake scrolls down the screen a little before putting the tip of his finger against the screen. "I asked for the name of the agency, he gave it to me, I just looked it up and it doesn't exist," he says quickly, a confident grin plastered on his face, "Fake agency, fake babysitter." 

The two detectives and the sergeant surrounding the desk widen their eyes as Jake leans back in his chair to reach the sideways desk behind him as he faced his friends and wife again. 

"I called a sketch artist in there for him to describe what the guy looked like, she's in there right now with him. We might just have a suspect for one of the kidnappings."   
Amy stands from the chair beside the desk. "I'm gonna call Isabella back in to talk, maybe she had a babysitter from this fake agency." 

"Great idea, I'll go back in and ask Miss Burrow." Charles announces, already making his way back to the interrogation room. 

* * *

As the words of Alfie-Jay's mother ring through their heads, they all mentally slam their heads against the desks - Jake doing it literally. 

_"I would never let anyone I didn't know in the house when I'm home, let alone when I'm not."_

They were still waiting on the sketch, but Jake had told her to take as much time as possible, not to let go of any minor detail Carlos described. It was now just gone 2:45 meaning the sketch artist had been in there just over forty-five minutes, so she wouldn't be in there much longer now anyway.

They had all been staring at their phones, watching the news as the covered over the same things again and again. Jake's phone pings in his hand, making everyone jump around the area, but it was nothing - only the school contacting him saying the buses were going to be delayed due to bad road conditions - which didn't really matter though, there wasn't any way Amy and him were gonna be home when Mac did anyway, he knew they were in for a late-night tonight too. 

When Caelyn's mother finally arrived, Jake lead her through to one of the interrogation rooms again, he had to get out of the bullpen, and began asking her if she had had anyone she didn't know inside her home, specifically a babysitter.

Isabella hesitated for a moment before she nodded her head. "Yeah, some guy that was a little sketchy, he was at my apartment two weeks ago."

Jake perks up in his seat a little. "We'll have a sketch artist through as soon as she's done with another person."

As if on cue, the door swings open, the sketch artist presenting the drawing in front of her.

"That's him! That's the plumber." Isabella exclaims, pointing to the grey and white paper. 

"Wait. A plumber?" Jake asks, knitting his eyebrows together deeply. 

He watches Isabella nod before he snatches the paper from the sketch artist and goes storming into the room next door, where Amy and Rosa were with Miss Burrow. He apologies to them all for interrupting before lifting the drawing in the direction of the blonde-haired woman. 

"Have you seen this man anywhere? In your house or not? Anywhere near your son?" Jake questions, gaining questioning looks from Amy and Rosa as Miss Burrow hesitates.

The rooms falls to a silence for a very brief moment, Jake breaking it with impatience in his voice. 

"Come on, have you seen this guy anywhere?" He repeats, his voice a little louder too. 

Quickly, Miss Burrow nods, gaining somewhat relieved looks from all three of the cops in the room with her. The verbal response is a little slower, lacking behind her nod by a few beats, and it comes out in a small mumble. "He did some electrical work for me, Alfie-Jay wasn't home, he was at school, I never would have let him in if he was home. Do you think he's the guy who took my boy?" She asks.

Jake gives a look toward Amy and Rosa before speaking up, his voice a lot more quiet than it was moments before. He looks to the woman in front of him and sighs. "He is connected to the three disappearances in different ways. He might not be the one who did this, but he is more than likely linked to the person who has." 

Alfie-Jay's mother looks up to the cops with tears shining in her eyes this time, her serious façade gone. "Please tell me you are going to get this guy."

"I promise we will try our very best to find the person who did this." Jake says before being cut off by his phone ringing in his pocket. He excuses himself, leaving Amy and Rosa with Miss Burrow to answer his phone, taking the sketch with him. 

He answers to hear someone frantically panicking on the other line. _"Mister Peralta, Mac isn't home yet and he's never this late._ "

Jake smiles slightly, going back into the bullpen whilst talking to the girl on the other end of the phone. "Look, Lea; don't panic about that, the school text me like an hour or so ago saying the buses were running late because of the roads. Sorry, I got caught up with this case and I forgot to tell you about it."

There's a sound of relief that washes over the girl's voice. _"Oh, okay, do you know what time he'll be back then?"_

He glances down to his watch on his wrist before shrugging a little. "It should be no less than twenty minutes from now, they'll drive slower too because the roads are pretty slippery today. Call me back though if he isn't home by then and text me when he does get home like normal."

Lea nods on the other end of the phone, confirming that she would before she hangs up.

Just then Charles comes over to him from his own desk. "What was all that about?" The shorter detective wonders.

Jake shrugs. "It's not important." He replies, lifting up the image to show his friend when he gets a proper look to the sketch drawn on the paper, furrowing his eyebrows at the face staring right back at him.

"Peralta, Boyle, is there an update on the case? The press is asking for a further brief on the case." Holt questions, walking toward them stood in the middle of the bullpen. 

The younger detective is brought back to reality as he snaps his head back up from looking at the drawing. He presents the paper to Holt quickly, the superior grasping hold of the grey and white. "This man is connected to all the kids, he was a babysitter for Brittany, a plumber for Caelyn and an electrician for Alfie-Jay." 

Holt nods subtly, handing the paper back. "The press will be here in twenty minutes then for the details. Just don't-"

Both Charles and Jake cut him off. "Show the sketch." They say simultaneously. Jake nods and finishes off the bit. "We're not stupid, we wouldn't do that."

Holt turns around again and disappears back into his office, the door shutting at the same pace as normal. 

Charles furrows his eyebrows, gaining his friend's attention when he knows he's in the clear from Holt. "What exactly are we supposed to say without saying directly we've got a suspect?" He questions.

He had a valid point. They couldn't say they had an idea they knew who it would be, they could be wrong and getting people's hopes up - and the cops don't need more people pissed off with them than there already was - and if they were right, the suspect could be watching the news and would know they were out to them. It was just too risky, but how they were going to please the reporters (which did seem impossible anyway) was unclear as of right now.

Jake shrugs a little. "We've got time to figure that out." He replies, moving his gaze back toward the drawing still in his hand. 

Was the guy someone who he had previously arrested? Was it a guy he had seen in the news before? So many possibilities swing through his head, too many to count, rushing past a mile a minute as he swears he knows the face from somewhere. Maybe the guy just had one of the very familiar faces? 

The detective guesses he's staring at it too long because next thing he knows his friend is calling his name somewhat loudly pulls his attention and head back into reality.

"Jake!" Charles calls out, taking a quick glance to the drawing before crossing his arms over his chest. "What are you staring at the sketch for? You see something?" 

The younger detective shakes his head quickly, bringing himself back completely before processing his friend's question. The shakes of his head get a little faster. "No, no, I just recognise the face from somewhere."

"Is it someone you arrested? What about that money launderer a few years ago, Louis something or whatnot?" Charles wonders.

"I was thinking the same thing." He said. That name was very familiar to him too. Jake nods. "That's got to be it. I swear that name goes with the face." 

They both walk back to Jake's desk, the younger detective setting some equipment up to run the picture through facial recognition to see if something might come up. Just as the picture is rendering, Amy and Rosa appear from behind them, looking over Jake's shoulder to see the screen and what was happening on it.

"We managed to calm Miss Burrow down, she's doing better n- Oh my god." Amy begins before going quiet again as her eyes fall to the sketch Jake had left sat on the top of his desk.

The three detectives all turn their heads in her direction, Rosa being the one to question it. "What? What is it?" She asks, concern clear in her voice.

Suddenly Amy grabs hold of the hood perched on her husband's shoulders, pulling him up and into the break room, shutting the door in a panic. Her voice is shaky as she points in the general direction of his desk back outside the door, where the other two detectives are stood in confusion over what had just happened in front of them.

"Is that the sketch of the suspect?" She asks quietly, her eyes displaying pure panic.

Jake nods, unsure of where this was going. "Yeah, it is, I'm running it through facial recognition now to see if he's in the system with a name, because if he is I don't remember it."

Amy speaks up immediately. "Jake, his name is Adamo Dahmer."

"How did you know that?" He wonders, a somewhat surprised and both impressed grin shone on his face.

A beat passes, Amy sighing loudly, the tension of what her answer might be sits on Jake's shoulders as he thinks over the top of how she might know him. If anything she's arrested the guy, they're both cops, that's the most logical response.

However what she says sends his heart plummeting down his throat, dropping down into his stomach, feeling like a million punches to gut at once by a boxing glove-sporting robot. 

"He babysat for Mac last week because Lea was caught up with schoolwork and couldn't do it."

Jake's eyes widen as he struggles to speak for a moment, before the words roll out of his mouth without much conscious thought. "Mac isn't home yet, Lea called and said. I told her not to worry because the buses were late anyway, but even then it's unlike him to be really late," he says quickly before fumbling to pull his phone from his pocket, lighting up the screen to find an empty notification centre in front of his eyes, "And she hasn't text me saying he's home yet."

The next few moments are too much of a blur to recall, but the next thing that registers in both Jake and Amy's mind is the phone call between them and the school.

Jake began speaking the moment the principal picked up (after having been first picked up by the receptionist and threatening her into putting them through to the principal straight away). "My son is late home and he never is, what the hell is going on?" The detective asks, his voice going so loud it bounced and echoed off the walls of the break room. 

The principal is quiet for a moment, pausing in a way both the cops didn't appreciate. Eventually, after feels like minutes, he finally answers his question with a response they weren't not looking for. "Who is this exactly?" 

The two of them groan as Amy yells through to the man on the other end of the phone. "Jake and Amy, our son is Mac, now will you tell us exactly how much longer will he be on those damn buses of yours?!" 

There's another pause. Jake wants to reach through the phone and hit the guy for keeping the tension lingering too long as his heart pounds loudly in his chest he can hear the ringing rushing past his ears. 

Amy's close to yelling at the guy again just before he cuts her off, replying back finally. It's like he was trying to piss them off. 

"I'm sorry, mister and misses Peralta, McClane didn't get on the bus earlier, his babysitter picked him at the gates instead because you insisted he get home straight away due to the current situation."

Jake's mind works and spits out the words under his breath again. "Mac's babysitter can't drive, she's sixteen and she's waiting at the apartment for him to get home."

Amy quickly sits down on the couch, flopping down into the cushions as everything seems to go, leaving Jake stood alone, leaning up against one of the chairs used for the table in the middle of the room. The phone was placed in the middle of the table, on loudspeaker so they could both hear. 

"She? No this was a male, mister Peralta," the principal says with what Jake can assume is a deadpan, "But McClane confirmed it was his babysitter before he left with him."  
Jake just moves his finger and presses the red hang-up button on the screen before partially sitting on the back against one of the chairs. He sighs sadly, the noise echoing through the otherwise silent break room. 

He's not sure how long they are both sat in utter mute conditions, but when it's broken it's by Charles opening the break room door, pointing subtly outside in the bullpen.

"Hey, Jakey, the press is here. What are we gonna say?" He questions.

The younger detective turns his head in the direction of his friend's voice, not replying and keeping it quiet again. When his friend calls his name again though it gets the answer out quickly. 

"Just tell them there's a suspected fourth abduction. I'll give the details in a moment."

Charles's mouth drops open agape. The cat has his tongue as he stares to his friends and colleagues saddened look in their eyes before he speaks in a stutter. "A... a fou- a fourth?" 

Jake nods from the table. "I'll give the details in a moment. Just please, go out there and announce it." 

Charles obliges, shutting the door again behind him. 

The detective throws his head back and stares up at the ceiling before the sound of his wife moving from the couch catches his attention. He watches her stand up before wrapping his arms around her as she falls into his chest. As a reflex, he places a gentle kiss against her forehead, resting his cheek against the top of her head and gripping harder into her embrace as she nuzzles her face into the nape of his neck. 

In a quiet, gentle whisper, Jake breaks the ever-so-quick-to-fall silence like a shatter.

"We're gonna get Mac back, I promise. I'm not gonna let anything happen to him," Jake says, slightly muffled as he speaks into her hair, "Not on my life."


	3. wednesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started planning this story after I had watched the first two episodes of Chicago P.D and now I'm publishing the last chapter having finished the last episode yesterday. It took me watching the entirety of the show to write this and publish, I hope it was worth it. 
> 
> I edited this one very quick, so I'm sorry if there are any mistakes. 
> 
> TW - suicide, at the end.

When Charles entered the bullpen, he's met with a sight he's seen only two other times in his working at the nine-nine. He remains at the doors of the elevator as he stares in the direction of his friend's desk.

Jake was sat in the chair, spinning from side to side as he looked between the monitor and the desk beside it with the mountain of paper stood on top of it. He would flick through some of the paper and find what he was looking for, and then look something up on the computer. Charles also noted that, when the detective's face came into his view, he looked quite sleep deprived from the previous night.

Another name had been put on the list of missing children last night. Jake had told them not long after the press arrived for their interview, and they all stood in shocked silence as he explained everything that he had been told by the principal. As the younger detective had stood in front of the camera to explain it, he suddenly broke down and asked if Terry could do it instead. The lieutenant had agreed instantly, stepping in the place where not moments ago Jake was stood, and announced it to New York.

Jake sat off to the side, allowing Charles's tight hugs from beside him as he watched Terry do the briefing to the press and the cameras, tears threatening to burn up in his eyes as the lieutenant went over the appearances of the children again, this time adding his own son in to it as well.

Rosa had gone off into the break room, where Amy had been the entire time. She had told Jake that she wanted to stay in there as he was leaving the room to inform the squad of the fourth missing child. As soon as Rosa heard, she had rushed in there to be with the sergeant, and she hadn't come back out since.

By the start of the night shift, they all stayed into overtime, but one by one they all got knocked down as people started to go home. At around ten-to-one, Terry folded and insisted on going home, Charles following the superior's lead at 1:35. Holt was next to go at 3:20 and lastly Rosa eventually left at four-thirty, making both Jake and Amy promise they would go home before five am to at least get some sleep.

But by the looks of it, it seemed as though only Amy had followed her friend's orders and had gone home, but Jake had seemed to have stayed at the precinct all night and also had ignored the Holt's orders too of falling asleep for a little while, because it looked like the detective hadn't slept a wink.

As Jake looks through the pile of paper for what was the fifth time since Charles had arrived alone, the older detective enters the bullpen quickly, sitting on the chair beside his friend and taking his hands away from the keyboard.

"Buddy, have you been here all night?" Charles queries.

Jake pauses, thinking of his response as if telling the truth would get him into trouble. But nonetheless, it looks as though his tired state doesn't think too much about what might happen as the detective nods to his friend's question. "Yeah, but I've been working the case." He says, taking his gaze away and putting it back on the computer monitor.

Charles brings his hand up to the younger man's chin, turning it toward him. "Jake, did you even sleep last night?" He asks when there is a pair of eyes looking back at his own gaze.

The detective quickly shakes his head. "Not once," he replies faster than his normal way of speaking, "Actually there might have been a very brief moment where I fell asleep at my desk but I woke up very soon after that, I wouldn't even call it sleep it was so short." He says, trying to turn his head back to the monitor to no avail.

The older man stands up from the chair and grabs hold of his friend's arm, pulling him up at leading him over to the side far enough away from his desk so Jake wouldn't get distracted. Charles manages to gain Jake's attention again quite quickly now that he wasn't sat in front of a bunch of distractions.

"Look, I know this must be hard for you, it would be hard for me too, but you have got to snap out of this mindset you've put yourself in and actually do what you need to do, which right now is sleep. You need to go home."

Jake shakes his head quickly, muttering under his breath. "I can't do that."

Charles's brows furrow. "Why not? Why can't you go home?"

The look back Charles gets from the younger man is one of as if the answer was obvious. He shrugs. "We've got to solve this case, there are kids out there with some guy who's taken them away from their families, they're probably terrified."

Charles nods. "I know that, Jakey, and we are going to solve this case but you can't think straight if you haven't slept."

"I've done it before, I can do it again." Jake says confidently.

Just then he thinks back to the other reasons Jake had stayed all night at the precinct to work a case. Trying to help Terry with one of his cases from when the superior was a detective, with the jerks of colleagues. Trying to take it to the next level - work wise because he needed something else to think about because Amy was out on a romantic trip with her at-the-time-boyfriend and he was hopelessly pining over her.

Charles sighs. "I know you've done it before, multiple times, but you were younger then, you need to sleep and you need to go-"

Just then, Jake snaps. "I don't want to go home, Charles, I can't!" He shouts, making everyone in the bullpen turn and face the two of them as Jake continued, "Because if I do there will be reminders everywhere of Mac and I can't deal with that. There will be Mac's things everywhere and I will know that the only reason he isn't there is because I didn't solve this case fast enough and now he's involved, he is in harm's way."

The older detective falls quiet for a moment. He stares to his friend's wound-up expression in surprise, taken aback by his loud voice filling the bullpen. He blinks back the startled look on his face, speaking up quietly. "It's not your fault, there is no way we could have known Mac was going to be taken. Up until last night we didn't even know who is responsible for all of this. All we have to do now is find him, find the kids and everything is going to be okay."

Jake suddenly nods, his face lighting up as he walks back over to his desk despite Charles's calls out for him not to do that.

"However while you were all off at home sleeping, I've been here working," Jake says as he pulls up on of the many pieces of paper on the sideways desk adjacent to the one with the monitor on, showing it off to Charles but not allowing him to take it from his hands when he tried, "I got information on our suspect, Adamo Dahmer, and as it turns out it's a fake name," he says, throwing the paper back on to his desk - making Charles understand why he wanted to keep hold of it. He then grabs a second one and hands it to Charles, "But when I ran his face through the system again I was pointed in the direction of Lincoln Wilkes, been arrested in the past and has several blogs open blaming so many things in the NYPD."

Charles shrugs lightly. "But why did he kidnap those four kids? That's what doesn't make sense to me, was there anything particular about them?"

Jake nods, taking the paper away from his friend and placing it back down on his desk. "All four of the kids had relatives somewhere in their family tree that had worked or are working for the NYPD."

"So he's trying to get back at the cops for whatever he blames them on?" The older man asks, the penny dropping in his head.

Jake nods again, smiling a little. "Possibly, yeah."

* * *

When everyone had arrived into work, Jake got everyone to gather inside the briefing room with Charles stood close by him.

The tables at the front of the room filled in quickly as the rest of the squad waited patiently for the two male detectives at the front of the room to begin what they had called them all in there for.

The screen by the podium switches on and Jake leans against the wooden post, looking out to the squad in front of him. He points behind his shoulder subtly to the image of the suspect behind him.

"This is Lincoln Wilkes, age fifty-four. He's been a journalist since 1996 and has a big grudge against the NYPD. He's written many articles and posted them online about how the police department are responsible for everything bad that happens here, and in 2004 even published an article blaming the NYPD for 9/11," Jake sighs, his voice somewhat monotone as he speaks, "He has been arrested many times for causing public disturbances and for trying to get physical against officers walking their beat for no apparent reason."

Rosa pipes up from the first table on the right. Her foot was propped up on the table as normal and she was leaning back in the seat, sat beside Terry. "So he is a suspect?"

Jake nods partially. "He's _the_ suspect," he says, "We've got his last known address from the system, but rather than risking spooking him too much, I've sent over a patrol car with a couple of uniforms to watch over the house and they've said they will report if there is any movement in or outside of the house worthy of our attention."

He wrapped up the rest of the briefing, dismissing everyone with the information they needed, Rosa was to go back into the interrogation room with Carlos to ask a few more questions - seen as the man had refused to leave the precinct since his arrival on Monday - and Charles was told to listen closely for any news from the uniformed officers by the house.

As Jake went leave the briefing room himself, Holt stopped him, standing in front of the detective as he walked toward the door.

Holt stares to him for a moment before placing his hands against his waist. "Peralta, how are you doing?" He questions.

Jake nods as falsely as he could, putting on the smile too. "I'm doing fine captain, as fine as I always am."

There isn't a change notable from the naked eye, but to Jake, Holt gives him a disapproving look. "Don't lie to me."

The detective shrugs, his voice gaining momentum a little to the superior officer in front of him. "What do you want me to say, sir, I'm doing just fine."

As Jake tries to walk away, Holt stands to the side and blocks the younger man off. Jake sighs under his breath and steps back to where he originally was, the captain following his footsteps and standing as a blockade again.

That seems to frustrate the detective enough for him to snap his gaze up to stare angrily at the captain. "Very funny, let me get past."

Holt then folds his arms over his chest, not too forceful as to crinkle his uniform. "Not until you tell me how you are really feeling."

"Pretty shit!" Jake says, his voice loud that it echoes through the briefing room.

The captain stares in shock at the younger man for a moment. Jake mumbles an apology and Holt puts his arm stretched out in the direction of his office, whispering the instruction for him to go inside there. Jake follows his superior's order and goes inside the office, Holt following behind him quite quickly.

Once the door is shut, cutting the two men from the bustling bullpen, Jake slumps his shoulders forward. "I'm sorry captain, I shouldn't have snapped."

Holt shakes his head, telling him that it didn't matter. He walks around his desk and sits in the chair, inviting the detective to sit opposite him. Once he does, Holt changes the subject. "Where is Santiago?"

Jake looks to the window, looking out into the bullpen but is shot down when he finds his gaze falling upon closed blinds behind his shoulder. His gaze slowly meets back up to the captain's as he shrugs again. "She went home around six, six-thirty maybe, and I haven't seen her since. I've tried calling but no answer."

Holt sits forward, resting his forearms against the big wooden desk between the two cops. "Do you know how she is doing with this?"

Jake takes a moment before he shakes his head. "I don't think very well, sir, but then I'm not handling it great either."

"No one would," Holt replies, cutting in front of the detective, "You have received truly awful news. No one would handle this situation well."

Jake can't help but crack a very brief smile on the edge of his lips. "Thank you."

There's a slight dip in Holt's brows. "For what, detective?"

He shrugs as he goes to stand up, going toward the door to leave the office. "Just thank you." Jake says quietly before opening the door into the bullpen and walking out, shutting it carefully behind him.

* * *

"We've got movement!" Charles yells, gaining the attention of everyone in the bullpen, but mostly Jake and Amy - who had arrived not that long ago without a word other than that she was asleep, ' _somehow_ ' as she had added.

It had been hours since the order was given to the uniforms to watch the house and up until now it had been quiet.

Amy, Rosa and Jake all jump from their seats and crowd around the older detective's desk, listening in to the radio quietly as the uniformed officers spoke aloud what they were seeing.

_"He's just left the house and he's getting into the car parked outside. He's got two kids with him, Caelyn and Brittany. I can't see the other two."_

Jake snaps his head up and begins walking off to the armory. "Alright, tell them to shadow the car, follow where he's going without getting caught and write down the license. We're gonna raid the house once he's gone, maybe the boys are still in there and then we'll follow him."

Charles nods, following Jake's instructions and ordering the uniform officers to tail the other car at a distance before chasing after his friend into the armory.

It wasn't long until they all left the precinct in a hurry, Terry driving the van as the other four sat in the back. Charles and Rosa sat in silence next to each other as they listened to Jake explaining what was going to happen when they arrived at the last known address for Lincoln Wilkes.

"Rosa, Ames, cover the front entrance. Charles, you and I will cover the back. We go in fast and we don't hold back. The boys might still be in the house but we don't know if there is someone working with Wilkes inside the house too, so still be cautious."

They all nod their head as they register the message, being jostled from side to side as the van stops suddenly. With a subtle look of where they were, they all leave the van and take their positions, Charles and Jake sneaking round the back of the house to maintain theirs by the back door.

It's silent for a brief moment, which is broken suddenly when Rosa makes their presence known loudly.

"NYPD!" She yells before the loud bang of the ram slamming into the door can be heard around the back, it giving way quickly and swinging wide open.

With every shout of "Clear" as the officers in through the house, it can be even heard from the upstairs rooms, Jake feels his heart sink as he realizes that the other two kids weren't left in the house.

"Where can they be then? The officers didn't see Wilkes leave with the boys." Charles wonders, placing his gun back in the holster on his side.

Suddenly it dawns on Rosa, her speaking up and cutting off Jake before he could. "What if they are where he's taken the girls already, before we stationed the officers in front of the house he took Alfie-Jay and Mac there and came back to take the others?"

They all give a look to one another before Amy shrugs, taking her turn to speak. "We might as well give it a shot." She says and they all leave the empty house.

Charles called up the other two uniforms again for the address, but they didn't respond. With furrowed eyebrows he tries again, but there is still no reaction on the other end of the phone.

"Where did they go? They were here not that long ago." Charles asks, looking up to the other detectives confusedly.

Amy looks up and points toward the radio. "Try again." She instructs.

The detective took the order and calls out the names of the uniforms into the radio, but there is no reply. He tries once more and to his luck, this time one of the officers speaks up.

_"The car has just pulled up on the housing estate on the corner of 7th street and Franklin Avenue in East Meadow."_

Rosa sighs loudly. "That will take an hour at best to get there provided there's no traffic and it's already starting to get dark."

Jake shrugs. "Well it's a good thing we've got flashlights with us then." He says, before giving the order to Terry to start driving.

* * *

Just under an hour later, the van pulled up quietly in front of the old housing estate. Most if not all of the buildings were vacant and had newspaper covering the windows and cardboard blocking off the doors, making them a breeding ground for criminal activity.

They all gathered around the third one in the row, as that was the one the uniforms had seen Wilkes go in with the two girls, as silently as they could. Terry gave the order for the other police that they had called for as well as the squad and they all quietly picked the lock on the door. If they slammed through, who knows what Wilkes would do to the kids knowing he had been caught - it was a risk they were not willing to take.

They all split off, Rosa and Charles going through to the kitchen, Terry and Amy going off upstairs and Jake traipsing off into one of the back rooms probably used for an office.

As he walks, he's careful not to stand too much weight on a floorboard that creaks or walk into a wall from trying to turn a corner too soon.

When he gets in there, the room is empty. He walks deeper into the room, away from the doorway, to be able to shine his flashlight into the further edges just out of reach, which is when he hears the door's striker click back into place behind him.

He turns his back slowly to find Wilkes standing behind him, staring at him through the darkness that had suddenly weighed down on the room when the door shut - not allowing any of the light through from the other officers.

"Now, we're gonna stay real quiet so your cop buddies don't know we're here and you're gonna hand over your gun without a fuss." Wilkes says, placing his hand out to receive the weapon out of Jake's hands.

The detective hesitates before giving in, placing the metal object into the perps open hand before having it turned straight back on him. Jake raises his hands slightly and stalls.

"What are you planning on doing, Wilkes, you're not gonna get away with this. This house is swarming with cops and there's more where that came from outside, the gig is up, just give in and nothing bad is gonna happen."

There's a look on the older man's face that looks as though he's considering it before chuckling quietly to himself. "Nice try, cop, but it's not gonna happen."

Jake nods slowly. "Alright then, if you're not gonna stop what you've done then tell me instead, why did you do it? Kidnap young kids, what was the idea behind that? What made you wake up one day and think, you know what, I'm gonna kidnap four kids for the fun of it."

Wilkes speaks with the words spitting out of his mouth now. "It was my way of getting back at the NYPD for what they did to my brother and nephew," he says, explaining a little further when Jake furrows his eyebrows, "One of your own shot my brother dead right in front of my nephew before turning the gun on him too and killing him alongside of it. He was only eight years old, and my brother did nothing wrong. He walked across the street to his death with my nephew in his hand!"

Jake sighs. "I'm sorry to hear that, but cops don't just shoot people, there must have been another reason as to why that cop did what they did that day."

Wilkes just shakes his head. "No, my brother did nothing wrong, and neither did my nephew. That cop was in the wrong that day, and I vowed I would get back at the cops and now look at this. I've got what I wanted, with a gun pointed right at you with the chance to pull the trigger and leave you six feet under."

"And send all the cops inside the house in here, right to you? What do you think is gonna happen then? You wouldn't be able to shoot them all, you'd get shot yourself."

Wilkes huffs. "Oh well, I'll do what I have to do and go out in a vain of glory." He says, raising the gun a little higher.

Jake feels the sweat begin to form on the palm of his hands as he stares down the barrel pointed directly at his head. "You don't have to do this, if you come out here right now your sentence will be ten-years provided the kids are unharmed, but if you pull that trigger you will spend the rest of your life in prison, Wilkes, and I've been there, seen it. I was there just over two months and I went crazy, how would you deal with thirty, forty years there?"

Then Wilkes goes silent, as if he really payed attention to what Jake had said. He furrows his eyebrows and after a minute he speaks up again, lowering the gun slightly. "I'll still have ten-years?"

Jake nods slowly, taking a subtle step forward. "Kidnapping is against the law, Wilkes, but as long as the kids are unharmed it will be classed as second-degree and you'll serve ten-years, maybe even less."

"I'd rather die right here than rot in there." Wilkes says, his voice a little louder than the rest of the conversation had been.

What happened next went so quickly Jake was unable to wrap his head around it very well. Wilkes lifts the gun up against his chest, the barrel pointing inwards and shoots, his body hitting the floor as the ring of the gunshot still bounced off the walls.

Jake jumped forward, catching Wilkes as he fell to the ground as he put pressure against the wound as Charles and Rosa burst through the door.

Rosa looks down and widens her eyes. "Jake, what did you do?!" She asks, her voice loud as she kicks the gun away from the two men on the floor.

Jake looks up to his friend and quickly shakes his head. "He turned the gun on himself, I didn't do anything."

The female detective kneels down and presses her fingers against the older man's neck. There's a quick pause before she shakes her head, looking back up to her friend. "He's gone, Jake."

As she says that, Jake pushes the corpse from his lap and stands up, screaming out in frustration. "He didn't even tell me where the kids are, Rosa!"

"We found them," Charles blurts out, making Jake look up with interest, "They were in the basement, they're unharmed and untouched. They're okay, all four of them."

Not a beat goes by before Jake storms out of the room, running out into the living room in search. He looks around frantically but when that turns out empty, he runs outside.

There's cops everywhere, the flashing lights of the cars now on and it's impossible to make out the faces as it's pretty much dark out now. Jake practically jumps down the stairs from the front door and looks around, but there isn't a sign of the kids anywhere. That is until a very familiar voice calls out.

"Dad!" The voice makes Jake look up instantly before smiling widely as he sees Mac running toward him.

He had a blanket draped over his shoulders and he was wearing the same clothes he had on before school the day before. The boy ran up to his father and Jake caught him, picking him up into his arms and resting his head against Mac's shoulder, gripping around him as hard as he could, but not so much to hurt him.

"I'm so glad you're okay, I was so worried about you." Jake says, his voice muffled into the boy's shoulder.

"I missed you." Mac says quietly.

Jake moves his head and presses a kiss against the side of Mac's face. "And you're never gonna have to miss me again, because I'm never going to leave you alone, not even when you're a grown up, you hear me?"

Mac nods and laughs slightly. "I hear you."

"I'm not kidding, McClane, I am never leaving your side again, not even for a second."

The seven-year-old nods again. "That's your serious voice, I know you're not kidding."

Jake smiles and pulls his son in for another hug. "I'm so glad you're okay." He repeats, finding an excuse to keep holding on to his son for just another minute before he needs to report the body in the back room.

Just then Rosa appears out of nowhere, speaking up into Jake's ear as if she had read his mind. "Don't worry, I've already reported Wilkes, you can just stay here with your kid."

Jake smiles back at her. "Thanks." He says before putting Mac down on the ground.

That's when the boy gets a good look at the blood covering the front of his father's shirt, as well as his hands. "Dad, are you okay? You've got blood all over you."

Jake nods. "It's not mine, buddy, I'm fine, but I promise you don't have to worry about it, okay? You're safe now."

Mac seems a little skeptical at first before he nods slowly and takes his father's hand, leading him through the crowd of cops toward the back, where he saw Amy stood too.

She turns around quickly at the sound of her husband's voice coming from behind her, placing the phone in her hand down and on to the table. "I've just called all the other parents, they're on their way here now to see their kids."

"How did they sound?" Jake questions.

Amy smiles. "Over the moon." She says, looking down at Mac and then back up at Jake and noticing the blood.

Jake cuts her off though, explaining before she could ask. "It's Wilkes. He took my gun from me and then turned it on himself."

"Are you sure you weren't the one that shot him?" Amy asks, a slight playful ring in her voice.

He shrugs. "Yes, I'm sure it wasn't me. When we first went in the house I had this thought that if I had to shoot him, I would do it in a heartbeat. I was angry, at him for taking our son and putting him at risk, but now I know I wouldn't have done it because I'm not that kind of person. And now that I know Mac is safe, and unharmed, and okay, I'm not angry anymore."

Mac beams up from lower down, hugging his father's side. Jake leans down and presses another kiss against the top of Mac's head, into the chocolate coloured curls that was his son's hair.

Jake then looks up and presses a quick kiss against Amy's lips, pulling her in for the hug too.

"We're all okay. Everyone is okay," Jake says, resting his cheek against the side of Amy's head, "It's all over now too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My next story is in the works, but like this and lost and found, I'm going to wait until I've finished it to publish it. I haven't even got a name for that one yet. 
> 
> See you next time! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos are an author's lifeblood, and I'm a complete sucker for them. I love hearing your views on the story, so please tell me what you think! 
> 
> As always, stay safe, and thank you for reading.


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